Top legal professionals are among people who fell for Singapore’s biggest alleged investment fraud, as the unraveling scandal reveals more high-profile victims.
Pek Siok Lan (白淑蘭), general counsel for state-owned investor Temasek International, and Thio Shen Yi, joint managing partner of TSMP Law Corp, are named in new charge sheets against former Envy Global Trading Pte managing director Ng Yu Zhi (黃有志), who has been prosecuted for allegedly raising funds from investors for nickel trades that did not exist.
Sunil Sudheesan, a director specializing in criminal cases with Quahe Woo & Palmer LLC, and technology start-up investor Finian Tan (陳誠錦) are also among the victims who were allegedly cheated.
Photo: Reuters
Ng was yesterday accused of 13 more charges, court documents seen by Bloomberg News showed.
He was charged with cheating nine individuals and three corporate entities out of at least S$83 million (US$61.8 million) in connection with Envy’s purported forward contracts for the sale of nickel, when there were no such forward contracts, the charge sheets said.
In the case that has riveted Singapore’s moneyed classes, Ng was first charged in March for allegedly raising at least S$1 billion in what authorities have called one of the city-state’s largest-ever suspected investment fraud schemes
In five years through to this year, Ng’s companies received fresh funds from investors of about S$1.46 billion, an interim judicial managers’ report published last month showed.
Ng was also charged with a criminal breach of trust by “dishonestly misappropriating a sum of at least S$201 million” from Envy Global Trading’s DBS Bank Ltd account, the documents showed.
Declining to comment on the case due to the ongoing investigation, a representative for DBS said the bank maintains “robust systems and controls to identify and report suspicious transactions. We cooperate fully with law enforcement efforts, and this includes account freezing and property seizures.”
Tan, who founded Vickers Venture Partners, said that he is the nominee for his and his partners’ investments in the receivable financing of Envy Global Trading.
“It is one of over 60 investments that we have exposure to as part of our overall diversification strategy,” he said.
Sudheesan declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigations, while Pek and Thio did not respond to e-mails for comment.
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